Phantom Phonecalls
by bunnikkila
Summary: Fred, Hiro, and Cass all left voicemails for Tadashi after his death. They didn't expect him to call back. (A follow-up to After The Beep; supernatural/ghost AU)
1. Chapter 1

_H-hey Fred, it's... it's Tadashi._

 _Look I... I'm sorry it took so long to... to uh... call back? Only I'm not exactly calling it's... I don't know how this works. I can't..._

 _Uh, wow, this doesn't make sense, does it?_

 _Look I... first, thanks for all the updates, and for looking after Hiro. I... it's... superheroes? Really?_

 _Wait, I don't mean it the way it sounds, you're all doing a great job with him. You're great._

 _And I... I need your help again._

* * *

Fred sat trembling on his bedroom floor, breath hitching in his chest as he stared at his phone, the forlorn and hesitant voice of a man dead three months still ringing in his ears.

He had called Tadashi up until his phone contract ended, craving the sound of his voice and the illusion of talking to him again; he had long stopped expecting Tadashi to call back.

"What... what the _hell_ , man?"

His voice scraped out harshly and he coughed and gulped, squinting at the NUMBER UNAVAILABLE on the screen.

A line to the afterlife - or a cruel joke.

If it was the latter, Fred was going to have a lot to say to-

The phone rang; he dropped it with a childish squeak and then scrambled to retrieve it, face heating, heart pounding as he recognized the _Robot Master Z_ ringtone he'd set for Tadashi a lifetime ago.

NUMBER UNAVAILABLE.

A deep breath, and Fred accepted the call.

"Uh... he... hello?"

Roaring static greeted him, laced with an atonal wail, and he dropped the phone again before stabbing a finger at it to end the call.

It took three tries to succeed.

Seconds later the phone chimed, the cheerful sound almost obscene, and Fred retrieved it with unsteady hands.

NEW VOICEMAIL.

"Oh boy," he muttered, leaning back against his bed. Staring at the phone failed to produce answers; after a moment of it he sighed, turning to kneel facing the bed as he set the phone on it and set it to speaker. "Okay. Here we go. Talk to me."

 _Sorry. Sorry. I didn't meant to scare you. Uh, that's a ridiculous thing to say, huh. But uh... listen. I... I want to talk to you. A lot. I mean... you know, I... we... but first, uh. Hiro's number is different, can you... can you give me the new one?_

"Wha-? I mean sure I-" Fred halted the blurted affirmative almost as soon as he'd given it.

Hiro's phone number?

It had changed in the last week, yes, but how could Tadashi - Tadashi's ghost - not know it, pick it up from Cass or Hiro himself?

For that matter...

"Why phones?" Fred muttered aloud.

The phone rang again. This time Fred waited for the voicemail chime, and when he played it Tadashi's voice came through slow and thoughtful.

 _I'm not sure. Maybe because it's... you and Hiro both called me a lot. After. I could... I could always hear it, but I didn't know how to respond. I've tried, you know, poltergeist things - you know?_

Fred sank back slowly on his heels, remembering one of his notes to himself falling free of its tape, sliding under a bookshelf until only the word 'Fred' was visible, and he began shivering again as blood roared in his ears, a feeling of unreality creeping over him to numb fingers and send his vision swimming.

For a moment he felt almost floating above himself, barely anchored.

The phone rang briefly and then chimed, and he jerked back to himself with a gasp.

NEW VOICEMAIL. NUMBER UNAVAILABLE.

 _Fred? Are you okay? I'm really sorry, I am, I didn't mean... if I'd figured this out sooner, it... okay. I'm... I'm a phone ghost, maybe because you and Hiro kept calling, and it's anchored. It gives me something to achor to I mean. That's my, uh, ghost hypothesis._

"Haunted hypothesis, you gotta alliterate man," Fred mumbled. Tadashi's voice was still coming tinnily through the phone speaker, and he leaned in closer as he listened.

 _I concentrated on your number, and I got through to voicemail. But Hiro's number is different from what it was, and since my number's not in service he hasn't called from his new number and I can't figure out how to get through. Aunt Cass' too. I haven't tried the others... I tried you third._

"Okay. That... makes as much sense as ghosts ever do." Fred nodded, resting his chin on crossed arms. "But still, it's kinda... you know..."

The phone rang and then chimed.

 _No, no, you're right. Even a superhero has to draw the line somewhere._

A pause.

 _Speaking of, you're not giving me credit. I never said Vampire Jubilee was_ silly _; I said it was weird to introduce a fantasy element to what had been pretty straight pseudoscience._

Fred leaned back again, apprehension and suspicion washed away by a tide of indignance.

"Hey! And I _still_ say that is _unfair_ and _inaccurate_ dude! There's been fantasy and supernatural stuff mixed into X-Men and the rest for _decades_!" He rocked up to his feet, hurrying to his shelves. "Hold on, hold on, there's a really good plotline from about thirty years back, you'll _like_ this one dude, it's..."

Just for a moment the echo of Tadashi's laughter rang in his ears.

Just for a moment he knew that if he turned he'd see Tadashi sitting on the bed, half-charmed and half-amused at Fred's exuberance.

He turned, and no one was there, and numbness washed through him again and he couldn't breathe for how his chest tightened and ached.

The phone rang, and the phone chimed, and for just a moment he almost felt a hand on his shoulder, almost heard a concerned murmur.

He managed a gasping inhale, and then a sob or a laugh or both tore painfully free.

"Oh. Oh my god this is... this is _real_..."

The phone rang and chimed again, and again; Fred stumbled back to the bed and sat, picking the phone up and holding it to his chest as he cried.

The phone sat silent a few moments. Then it rang and chimed a fourth time, and Fred composed himself enough to play the messages.

 _I know I'll like it, you always pick great stuff, we'll see if I can, uh, poltergeist well enough to read it._

 _Yeah. It's real, I'm real, I just... we can figure this out. I just gotta... I dunno, ghost better._

 _Wait, no, don't-I'm sorry, I... I'm so..._

 _I'm really sorry, Fred. I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you, to hurt any of you...!_

Fred swallowed hard as he listened to Tadashi's voice, thick with tears and desperately forlorn.

"I... I know, dude... it's just..."

He blew out a harsh breath, scrubbing his eyes with the heel of one hand.

"I... whoo, this is... this is a lot, but... uh... phone numbers. Right."

He stood, walking to his desk to retrieve a notepad. There was anticipation in the air, and he shivered, remembering similar vague sensations over past weeks as he held pen over paper.

"This is real," he muttered again, wonder and grief and apprehension mingled in his voice. "If... if there were like... cameras in here to remember things you said and get this number to bug Hiro that'd be... stupidly elaborate and also someone who can see the future, and also Heathcliff would notice."

The echo of Tadashi's laughter flickered again, disbelieving this time, and the phone rang and chimed.

 _Hidden camera? Are you serious right now?_

"Dude. I'm like... a superhero now. One dealing with _ghosts_. I gotta take everything into account."

He got another soft echo of laughter for that, and smiled as he wrote down two numbers, counted slowly to sixty, and then scribbled them out as the phone rang and chimed again.

 _Thanks Fred. I'll, uh... call again soon. I love you._

"Love you too," Fred mumbled. For a moment he felt a strange pressure - almost like a kiss pressed to his forehead - and he smiled, vision blurring as he picked up his phone again.

ADD NUMBER TO CONTACTS.

TADASHI HAMADA.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hey Hiro._

 _It's Tadashi._

 _Listen, I... listen you... you've got every right to be mad at me. And I'm sorry. I'm.. Hiro, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean..._

 _I guess it doesn't matter that I didn't mean it. Mean to hurt you. I did, just... one wrong decision, one mistake, and I..._

 _But listen to me, Hiro. I'm sorry, but I'm also so proud of you. Of Baymax and the others... but especially you._

 _And if you still want to talk, well..._

 _Well, I'm sorry it took me so long to figure out how, but... I'm here to listen._

Hiro glared at his phone as the message ended its third play, brows lowered and eyes stoney and...

And eyes welling with tears, because it sounded _so much_ like him, was what Hiro had wanted more than anything these past months, a want that had itched in his mind every waking moment since... since...

He puffed his cheeks and closed his eyes, hand rubbing over his face and then resting at the back of his next as he studied the phone.

It rang as he stared at it - UNKNOWN NUMBER, the cheerful tune ringing through the speaker the ringtone he'd used for Tadashi on his last phone - and he scowled and rejected the call with a decisive swipe.

That ringtone hadn't even been installed on this phone; who could have tampered with it to download? When had he last left it unattended?

"Who's a big enough jerk to do this?" he muttered aloud.

In answer the phone chimed, signaling a new voicemail; Hiro jumped slightly, scowl deepening as he reached for it.

"Baymax. Are you done recompiling?"

Behind him, Baymax unfolded from his charging station and waddled forward. Hiro had noticed weeks ago that Baymax no longer required an 'ow' to emerge from standby; it had seemed natural to Hiro, something not even worth remarking on, though now - with Tadashi's voice almost hanging in the air - he wondered what his brother would make of it.

"I am finished, Hiro." He paused, and Hiro could see the lenses in his eyes contract briefly as Baymax scanned him. "Hiro. Your heart rate and blood pressure are elevated." Another pause; Baymax didn't scan him this time, but he could still feel the robot's careful scrutiny. "You are... angry? Afraid. Both?"

"I'm..." Hiro rubbed his face again. "Yeah. Yeah, both. You're uh... you're getting good at that."

Baymax said nothing, only leaning forward slightly as he waited for Hiro to continue. Hiro cleared his throat and looked away, staring at the phone again.

"So, uh. I... all your programming is on your chips, I haven't added... so I don't know everything you... look, do you have some kind of vocal recognition software?"

"Of course. I was initially programmed to respond to tone and to differentiate between patient and human medical personnel in a hospital setting. To further assist in this I began keeping records of voices I am exposed to around the time of Tadashi's sixty-third test."

Hiro blinked, a small smile edging onto his face.

"You were doing your own thing that far back? Huh... wait, no, don't distract me!"

"That was not my intention, Hiro." A pause. "Would distraction help your current state?"

"Nope, just answers. Listen to this with me, okay?"

He waited for Baymax's nod, and then reached forward to play the message.

 _Look, I... I know how this sounds. I know this is ridiculous and... and unbelievable, but... I don't mean to hurt or scare you, it's just... I don't really know how this works, but... but hear me out and I won't tell Aunt Cass you said, uh, GD._

The message ended. Hiro looked expectantly up at Baymax, who stood silent a full minute before looking at Hiro.

"That is Tadashi." A pause. "Hiro. You should not have a voice mail from Tadashi on a phone less than a week old."

Baymax's voice was as close to baffled as his synthetic tones would allow. Hiro took several long, deep breaths (for which Baymax helpfully displayed a 'calming respiration' graphic) and then nodded.

"Yeah. Yeah, no kidding. This is the second today... Baymax, are you _sure_?"

Baymax didn't answer immediately, instead straightening as he replayed the message internally.

"Yes," he said at last. "There is significant underlying distortion, and I cannot retrieve a memory of the message you played while I was in standby. You did play that one on speaker as well?" He waited for Hiro's nod. "The distortion, and the fact that I cannot retrieve a standby memory of the initial message, are anomalies I cannot explain. But I can say with ninety-seven percent certainty that that is Tadashi Hamada's voice." He paused again. "Hiro. What is GD?"

"Let's not worry about it right now," Hiro said quickly. "Is... is there any way someone could be listening in on us? Or could have in the last few weeks?"

"No," Baymax said after a moment. "No such capability exists in here, and even Aunt Cass is not near enough to hear."

"Okay." Hiro ran his hands through his hair. "Okay. Um. If... if you are Tadashi, um... I'm listening." He looked up at the ceiling, frowning. "Uh. Are you... _here_?"

Almost immediately the phone rang. Hiro snatched it up to answer the call and then dropped it as an atonal shriek came through; after a moment he managed to end the call with shaking hands and looked up at Baymax with wide, expectant eyes.

"That is the distortion I was detecting," Baymax said placidly. "However. I am also able to detect samples of Tadashi's voice within the distortion; I recommend waiting for voicemail."

On cue, the voicemail chime sounded. Hiro set the phone on his bed and played it.

 _You know, Fred came to the 'maybe I was watched' conclusion too, but later than you did. And his first thought was hidden camera in his bedroom of all things._

There was unmistakeable fondness in Tadashi's voice; Hiro smiled as the voice - his brother - continued.

 _And yeah - yeah, I'm here. But I'm not in the ceiling, little brother. I can't fly._

 _Also - sorry. I should have warned you about the, uh, noise. I figured that out with Fred, I just... yeah._

"So... what _can_ you do?" Hiro scanned the room carefully, relishing the goosebumps prickling along his arms and the blooming hope in his chest. "And - wait. You called _Fred_ before me? I mean I know you two were... whatever it was you were doing, I don't want to hear about it but the dating I knew."

The phone rang again; this time Hiro let it go through to voicemail and then played the message, leaning over the phone.

 _Fred's phone number never changed. I got through to him by concentrating on his phone number... I got a stranger when I tried your old one and they... they couldn't hear me even over voicemail. I can't fly or go through walls, but I can move things sometimes. And I can instantly go to places that hold some significance._

"Fred's bedroom holds significance," Hiro deadpanned. Tadashi's flat, unamused stare popped into his mind unbidden and he started laughing, sliding his face into his hands as tears came on the heels of giggles, and as Baymax gathered him into his arms he laughed and cried until his chest and stomach ached and he was talking between hiccups. "Fred's _b-bedroom_! I d-didn't need to... to know that!"

The phone had rang again, a new message displayed, and he leaned forward to play it.

 _All right, smartass, I don't know what you're thinking and I don't want to but cut it out._

The tone was so warm and full of affectionate chiding and so Tadashi that Hiro could hardly bear it; he turned his face into Baymax as the message continued.

 _I don't know, this is the least scientific thing I've done in a long time, but I think... it's a combination of you guys calling me a lot and you guys wanting to hear me that gives me something to anchor to._

 _Hiro, I... I really am sorry... I wasn't... I made a mistake._

"Don't call it a mistake," Hiro muttered, muffled against Baymax. "That's what _he_ called it and... wanting to help, that wasn't... wasn't..."

"We know that your intentions were not harmful," Baymax offered.

"So, uh." Hiro turned to look at his phone again. "How, uh, did you convince Fred?"

 _I mentioned a comic book discussion we had a few months ago._ Tadashi laughed quietly. _Same old Fred. But asking Baymax was really smart, although I wasn't sure if he'd be able to hear-wait, he's been coming out just when you call him, and other stuff, I... this is way more than I programmed, this is huge-! I haven't thought about it much because I've just been trying to... be noticed, but Hiro...!_

Tadashi's excitement was palpable; Hiro could almost feel it thrumming through the air, and a vision of Tadashi bouncing around the room in the throes of discovery was enough to send his vision swimming with fresh tears.

"Yeah, well... it started with you... test sixty three... his own idea."

 _Yeah but... wow... I don't think we can even measure how much influence from either of us influenced him..._

"We can figure it out. And... and... we can... maybe figure out a way to get this... less phone-haunty?"

 _Hm. I'm not gonna possess Megabot if that's what you're thinking - I don't know if I can, I can't do any ghost stuff except some poltergeisting that no one really noticed._

"Maybe Aunt Cass did, she's kinda into that."

 _Maybe. Look, I... I better talk to her now. I got both your numbers from Fred, so..._

"So yeah, talk to her and then go, I dunno, bug your boyfriend in his emotionally significant bedroom or something. And I... I'm gonna figure this out. So... so come back soon."

 _We'll both figure it out. I promise. I'm not gonna screw up again, Hiro._

For just a moment, Baymax's wasn't the only embrace he felt; Hiro leaned into the ghostly pressure, swallowing hard, and when it vanished he reached for the phone to change UNKNOWN NUMBER to TADASHI HAMADA.

"Okay, Baymax. Let's see how we can work this out - starting with your scans."


End file.
